Research and Development in the Institute of Education

The Institute of Education provides research-based and contemporary pre-service training for teachers, special education teachers, speech therapists, and social pedagogues. There is also an extensive in-service training programme for teachers, heads of schools, and university teaching staff.

Our main fields of research:

Development of teachers' professional competence
Relations between teacher’s professional development and students’ achievement and general competencies at different ages
Teaching practices and beliefs of teachers and academic staff
Teacher's agency

Motivation
Emotions
Self-regulation skills
Learning competence
Communication competence
Socio-emotional skills
Mathematics competence
Nature competence
Entrepreneurship competence

Inquiry-based learning and problem solving in web-based learning environments
Digital competencies
Responsible research and innovation
Algorithmic thinking
Virtual and augmented reality

Development of instruments for assessing the progress of students with special educational needs
Development of research-based learning materials and teachers’ guidelines for working with students with special needs
Indications of speech and language disorders
Development of diagnostics and therapies

The publications of our institute's employees are available in the Estonian Research Information System ETIS and in the database of Google Scholar.

The institute's staff have participated in international development projects that have focused on web-based inquiry learning environments and learning analytics in e-assessment.

The Institute of Education co-ordinates the work of Pedagogicum – a consortium established by all faculties of the university for the co-ordination and joint development of curricula, standards and practice in teacher training, and co-ordination of related development projects.

In co-operation with Tallinn University, the institute publishes the Estonian Journal of Education – an open access peer-reviewed journal with an international editorial board.

The institute maintains strong links with the Faculty of Science and Technology in research and development projects.